Features

Unlike other projects that include a small set of features and then encourage users to install 3rd party add-ons, the Tiki community includes a large number of features in the main code base. This helps to ensure that when you upgrade, your existing features will not break. This also permits tight integration of the various features and makes it easier for you to re-use content across different features. For example, you can use the Wiki syntax throughout the application: in wiki pages, forum posts, trackers, and more. You can read more about the Tiki Model.

Because Tiki is in a state of continual development by the community, not all features are fully developed. This page provides a rating system for each feature to help you judge if Tiki is the right tool for you.

The ratings below are for the latest stable version. The next major version will continue to add improvements to these features and will provide new functionality, too.

You can also see the details of every single preference in Tiki: All Preferences

Content features

Articles can be used for date-specific news and announcements. You can configure articles to automatically publish and expire at specific times or to require that submissions be approved before becoming "live." In addition to categories and tags, articles include their own unique classification system of Topics and Types.

Enable users to send internal messages to each other (like email but internal to the Tiki site). A message can be broadcast to multiple users in a Tiki group or to all site users if the appropriate permissions are granted.

Users can write, upload, download and read notes. Notes can be read as raw text files or as wiki pages interpreting the wiki markup syntax. The user-quota that admin can control is used to set the maximum size that user notes can take.

A simple shopping cart feature - Information on products or services can be maintained in wiki pages or trackers with display via Pretty Tracker ) and purchases added to Module Cart through the PluginAddToCart and sent to the payment page.

Boxes for content, typically on the left or right of a portal-style site but can be placed anywhere, even in page content, with or without a visual frame. Very useful for navigation and content re-use. Over 100 built-in modules are available, and site admins can create their own.

In Tiki terminology, a structure is a hierarchy for wiki pages. Structures have navigational features such as breadcrumb links and menus; also enabled is printing all pages in the structure and in order.

User bookmarks let users bookmark internal or external pages, create folders and organize their personal bookmarks in folders. Bookmarks can be cached if that option is enabled. A module is provided to let the users see their bookmarks, navigate through them, and add new bookmarks.

Thirty-three visual themes are included and several have theme options (color variants). And, with Bootstrap compatibility, it is straightforward to create your own. Tiki themes are visual layers only and so avoid the possibility of introducing a security vulnerability.

If appropriate for the site, this feature implements a game approach to motivate people to participate in the online community. Users are given points for things they do in the site, like writing or reading an article, starting a new topic in a forum, voting in a poll, etc. They also earn points by having his/her blogs and articles read and commented on. Then the users will be able to see their position in a ranking.

Apply formatting and styling to text directly or via editor toolbar buttons; no need for HTML. Strong help feature and usable throughout various features such as blogs and articles, not just in the wiki!

Other

Tiki is a community. Tiki is a software. The Tiki community is recursively using and improving the Tiki software, which is used to support the community as well as to make available to the general public.

Tiki's documentation is a wiki (of course!). So you can participate! The are links from your installed Tiki application directly to the corresponding documentation wiki page. As the documentationis constantly being updated and organized, broken links may sometimes occur. Please bear with us and feel free to participate!

In Tiki terminology, a "profile" is a set of site configuration preferences and website item creation instructions that are applied as a group. The website profiles.tiki.org is the main repository for these.

Some profiles are simple, like a contact form, and some are more complex, to the point of being a new feature, in effect. These are crafted packages of wiki page content, site feature preference and other configuration settings and so on that can be imported to a Tiki site from a profiles server, and activated to implement new functionality at the site.

So Tiki Profiles aren't listed as pre-made features, but can be installed to, in effect, create a new feature at the site.

General notes:

About Tiki Features

Because Tiki offers such a large number of features "out-of-the-box", it can be overwhelming, even to an experienced user or administrator. Tiki has all the classic CMS and portal features of other applications, but also includes features not available anywhere else. Tiki is highly configurable and modular; all features are optional and can be administered through Tiki's browser-based interface.

Using this evaluation

This self-evaluation of features will help you know what to expect after installing Tiki. Many features are widely used and quite stable. Others are new and experimental. While others are no longer maintained and may have limited functionality. For beginners, we recommend using features that have been rated as A or B; they are the most stable. The features and ratings are based on the latest stable version of Tiki.

Updating this evaluation

To update and improve this self-evaluation, please login, then click the name of the feature. You can then complete any of the missing information or change items that you feel are incorrect. For example, if you think a feature deserves a B rating instead of a D, you can change it. You can also add comments about the features.

Note: All changes will be reviewed by a project admin and may be edited or modified if needed.